Tag: favourite books

Daisy Jones & The Six by Taylor Jenkins Reid [Book Review]

Alice10 Comments

Did I get roped into buying this from all the beautiful photos and wonderful reviews over on bookstagram?

Yes, yes I did.

But I don’t regret it.

Summary

Daisy Jones & The Six is one of the most unique books I’ve read in a very long time. Set in the 1970’s, amidst the height of rock ‘n’ roll, it follows the journey of six bandmates (The Six) and the singer Daisy Jones. It’s written purely in dialogue – the truth lies only in the words which have been spoken – as the reader is thrown into a world of music, heartbreak, desire and ambition. Tell me it’s not real, I dare you. These characters light up the stage of the page in a way that really does make you believe in their souls.

My Thoughts

One of the most disappointing feelings as a reader is going into a book with such high expectations and then having them fall flat. I half expected this to happen with Daisy Jones & The Six but it really did take me by surprise.

I’ve never read a book written purely in dialogue and I think naturally I had some questions going into it. Would I feel too detached from the inner worlds of the characters? How is the plot going to formulate? Would I simply get bored? However, as soon as I started reading, none of these questions even mattered – I didn’t need to think about them at all.

Daisy Jones & The Six is a success, I think, because it doesn’t try to be something its not. It allows itself to be character-driven without trying too hard to make a plot out of it. And it’s believable – so believable. From the very first page I felt like I was watching a documentary play out before my eyes. Dialogue was interspersed cleverly to keep everything relevant, and yet each character had its own style, its own life and its own sub-plot.

I don’t often give books 5 stars – only if I feel I connected to the book in some way. And when I’m reading a book about rock ‘n’ roll in the 1970’s, before I was even born, it’s easy to think, well, how can I relate to any of this? But there were so many stripped back, beautiful moments in this book, which felt like those vulnerable moments in a documentary when a singular person is talking to the camera and they just bare their soul. And in those moments, as a reader, you see these characters as flawed human beings – behind the parties, the drugs and the commotion, they are facing a universal struggle.

As someone who loves both music and writing, I was particularly interested in the way these two elements were brought together for the songwriting scenes of the book. The power of music, of writing, of putting a chunk of your own heart and soul into these art forms is what this book is all about – and how sometimes the most important of words are never spoken, or never needed to be. Whilst I couldn’t relate to the characters on a surface-level, their deeper thoughts, the way they placed themselves within their art, resonated with me. I so wanted the band to be real. Honestly. I still do. I wish the songs were real.

Daisy Jones & The Six may look like an exciting, thrill of a ride – and it is, most definitely. But it also places a much deeper emphasis on relationships, art, choices and trust. It has that extra layer that any reader surely looks for in a book. And that’s what makes it so great.

If these wonderful quotes (my favourite quotes from the book) are anything to go by…

“These people from a different country, people I’d never met in my life, I felt connected to them in a way that I hadn’t felt connected to anyone before. It is what I have always loved about music. Not the sounds or the crowds or the good times as much as the words – the emotions, and the stories, the truth – that you can let flow right out of your mouth. Music can dig, you know? It can take a shovel to your chest and just start digging until it hits something.”

Daisy Jones

“She had written something that felt like I could have written it, except I knew I couldn’t have. I wouldn’t have come up with something like that. Which is what we all want from art, isn’t it? When someone pins down something that feels like it lives inside us? Takes a piece of your heart out and shows it to you? It’s like they are introducing you to a part of yourself.”

Billy

Have you read Daisy Jones & The Six?

I’d love to know what you thought in the comments below!

‘Feel The Fear And Do It Anyway’ by Susan Jeffers [Book Review]

Alice2 Comments

Feel The Fear And Do It Anyway is a truly powerful book and its lessons are enough to change any person’s life if they’re willing to take that uncomfortable and fearful step forwards. 

For this reason, I don’t think it’s surprising that there are a couple bad reviews floating around Goodreads – only because this book doesn’t mess around; it tells it how it is, and it tells you to take responsibility for your life. Many of us don’t like hearing it! 

Feel The Fear And Do It Anyway touches upon many important life topics, but overall it promotes a positive mindset, how to face decisions in your life, and how to ultimately trust in your ability to handle whatever life throws at you. But what makes this book even greater is that it’s actionable. It doesn’t just tell you the end goal, it tells you how to get there. All you have to do is be willing to sign up for the journey.

This is the kind of book I will always keep on my shelf and reread in times when I feel stuck and need a positivity boost. I think if you go into this with an open mind, it can become significantly important to anyone. With many different sections, and the ability to underline important phrases (it’s very quotable!), it is easy to dip in and out of. I already find myself wanting to go back and give a few of the exercises a go.

I think even the prospect of this book might instil a little fear in some people – just because as a reader we know that reading it may encourage us to go out and do all those things we’ve been too scared to do – but, as I’ve said to myself over the past year or so, feeling fear is even more reason to go out and do it!

I think it’s impossible to always feel the fear and do it anyway, because fear is a powerful thing, but we can all make that one extra step each and everyday. And I hope by keeping this book by my side that I can keep reminding myself of this.

So, as Jeffers mentions in the book, say YES to the opportunity! Read the book and promote personal growth. Good things happen when we say YES, and who doesn’t need a bit more good in their life? 

When was the last time you felt the fear but did it anyway?

I’ve love to hear your inspiring stories in the comments!

10 Books I Loved In 2020

Alice9 Comments

2020 has been a really great year of reading for me – after years of reading for educational purposes, I finally got back into the habit of reading for fun and I’ve really enjoyed it!

This year, I set a target on Goodreads to read 12 books, thinking it would take me a while to get back into the habit, but I surprised myself by finishing 42 books this year – a lot more than I thought!

As a result, I’d like to share my top 10 books for this year. Let me know in the comments if you’ve read them too!

Feel Better in 5 by Dr Rangan Chatterjee

This was the first book I read in 2020 and I’m so glad it was because it set me up well for the year ahead! Dr Chatterjee is most widely known for his podcast Feel Better Live More which I’ve been listening to for about a year now. He’s such an inspiring doctor – someone who really listens and looks at people’s health problems in a holistic manner, promoting wellbeing and mental health tips to fight illnesses. His book Feel Better in 5 is how you can change your life in only 15 minutes every day. Don’t believe it? Read it. It’s amazing!

Insomniac City by Bill Hayes

This is one of the most unique books I’ve read. Filled with snippets of diary entries and black and white photography from across New York, it was a very real account of what it was like for Bill in the final few years of his life with Oliver Sacks, who was suffering from cancer. I loved how this book was like a snapshot into lots of different people’s lives, and I really did feel consumed by the New York bubble he portrayed, feeling a little lost when I came out the other side.

View full book review here.

Outline by Rachel Cusk

Again, such a beautifully unique book. I really can’t describe Cusk’s writing style, but it completely blew me away. There is a certain honesty and exposure of human life in the work she produces that delves deeper into what it is like to think and feel in the world. It is philosophical, like a stream of consciousness, and bursting with questions and reflections. I remember reading this one in a matter of days!

View full book review here.

The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald

Before anyone asks, don’t worry, I had read this book previously! It had been a few years since I studied it for A levels so during lockdown I dug it up, re-read it and it was just as wonderful the second time! I remember sitting in the blazing sun in the garden during the summer heatwave whilst reading it and reminiscing on all the quotes I would write endless essays about. It was nice to read it just for what it is, to soak it all up for my own purposes. It’s one of those all-consuming books, and the Baz Luhrmann film is a brilliant adaptation!

Tuesdays With Morrie by Mitch Albom

There are so many things to say about this wonderful book! Another lockdown read for me earlier this year, this really got me thinking about what it means to truly live. Beautiful, heart-breaking and all a true story, this is one of those books I will forever be recommending to everyone I know!

View full book review here.

Little Fires Everywhere by Celeste Ng

I started this book very much hoping it would live up to all the amazing reviews, and it certainly did! There is an internal conflict to the characters in this novel – you find yourself debating who to believe, who to root for, and who to ultimately side with, but there is no right or wrong. It’s a book full of honesty yet secrets, love yet misunderstandings. The relationship between mother and daughter is explored brilliantly, and, although hesitant at first, I ended up loving the TV adaptation of it too.

View full book review here.

The Humans by Matt Haig

This was another re-read for me this year, because it’s one of my all-time favourite books! Funny, honest and so heart-warming, this book may have a super weird premise, but it’s ultimately a reflection on what it means to be human and how important the people in our lives really are to us. I enjoyed it just as much the second time around, so can confidently recommend this one!

View full book review here.

The Five People You Meet In Heaven by Mitch Albom

Mitch Albom, author of Tuesdays with Morrie, makes a second appearance in this blog post! That’s because I’ve been on a bit of a spree collecting and reading his other books. Although Albom has a very simple writing style, I love the philosophical concepts to his books and they really touch upon the important aspects of life – what it means to be alive, and how we find meaning in the way we relate to and help others.

View full book review here.

The Midnight Library by Matt Haig

And Matt Haig makes a second appearance too, but I’m not surprised about this one! I’ve reviewed 7 books of his on my blog so far, and I never seem to stop! The Midnight Library is his most recent publication and it might even be his best yet. When Nora enters the Midnight Library, she can take out any book and go back to a life she would have had if she’d made a different decision. Reflecting on regrets and the search for a meaning to life, this book is truly amazing, and the overall message is something I really relate to.

View full book review here.

Eleanor Oliphant is Completely Fine by Gail Honeyman

I don’t think I’ve ever had such a change of heart from the beginning to an end of a book. Eleanor is such an odd yet unique character and the more I read, the more I wanted to understand what it must be like to be her. This book was a wonderful reflection on what it means to be lonely, how important human connection is, and how to overcome past trauma – sometimes all we need is just someone to listen and stand by us, no matter what.

View full book review here.

What’s your favourite book you’ve read in 2020? (or top 3, if you can’t decide!)

Let me know in the comments below!

‘Eleanor Oliphant Is Completely Fine’ by Gail Honeyman [Book Review]

Alice11 Comments

Admittedly, I’ve had this book on my shelves for way too long. After hearing all the wonderful reviews, I finally sat down and gave it a read, and it was far from what I expected!

Summary

Eleanor Oliphant leads a simple life. Her days roll into one as she goes to work, eats the same lunch, returns home and drinks away her weekend. She’s odd, she’s an outsider, and she doesn’t quite fit in – and she doesn’t really want to either. Not until she realises quite what she’s missing…

My Thoughts

I don’t think I’ve ever had such a change of heart from the beginning to the end of a book. I started Eleanor Oliphant not quite sure what I had got myself into. The premise seemed simple. I wasn’t sure I liked the writing. In my head, I was convinced it would be a 2 star read.

However, the more I read, the more intrigued I was by Eleanor. The more I read, the more I began to care about the characters as genuine people. And I don’t think I’ve felt so immersed in a book for a long while; I really would lose track of time.

(Warning: Spoilers ahead!)

I think the turning point for me in this book was when the character of Eleanor became not just a surface-level being, but the author let us, as readers, into her thought pattern, her struggles and why she is the way she is. And I felt so bad for her. She’s a character perhaps we can never really understand or relate to on every level (and Eleanor says this herself in the book), but most of us have, as humans, on some level experienced the journey she has been through – realising the value in small acts of kindness and the power of human connection.

There are so many unique qualities to this book that will remain with me for a long while, eventually leading me to give it 5 stars. From Eleanor’s naive misunderstandings in the Bobby Brown make up section, which genuinely made me laugh, to the beautiful friendship between Eleanor and Raymond that I’m so glad wasn’t ruined by an unnecessary romance. Eleanor is a strong person, even when she believes she’s far from it. Her past haunts her but, with time, she learns to truly overcome it.

I read somewhere that Honeyman was inspired to write this book after speaking to a young lady who said she never spoke to a soul between the time she left work on Fridays until she returned on Monday mornings. It’s interesting how, as a society, we think of loneliness as a struggle of the elderly, and yet it can affect young people just as strongly. This book was such a heart-warming exploration of how a lonely soul, who believes she can take care of herself, finds happiness in friendship, opening herself up to a world she never knew existed.

And I think, deep down, it’s also an exploration of what we call home. Eleanor has lived in the same place since university and she sees it as home, but it isn’t until the end that that home becomes meaningful. As people, it’s often not the place that is valuable to us; it’s the memories that live there. We find a home in other people. And Eleanor, until the end, has never really felt that before.

Have you read Eleanor Oliphant is Completely Fine?

Let me know what you thought in the comments!

‘The Midnight Library’ by Matt Haig [Book Review]

Alice10 Comments

Where do I even start? This book was brilliant, inspiring, heart-warming, emotional, interesting and, most of all, important. It had a lot to say and it said it beautifully.

Summary

“Sometimes just to say your own truth out loud is enough to find others like you.”

The Midnight Library is a place between life and death. When Nora decides to end her life, she finds herself in this library, full of books of lives she could have had if only she’d made a different decision. One by one, she enters these lives, in an attempt to find her ‘perfect life’, in an attempt to really live.

I absolutely loved this book – from the beautiful cover, to the world created, to the final moments of the story. I felt completely entranced by the world Haig had created and I honestly couldn’t put it down.

There were so many directions this novel could have taken. Like the amount of potential lives available to Nora, the book had infinite possibilities in terms of what lives could be chosen and described, how Nora entered and lived lives that weren’t technically hers, and how this would change her as a character.

But I needn’t worry how Haig would make this happen because he found a way (like always), and I absolutely loved journeying with Nora as she figured out what she wanted from life and what she needed to be happy. Although she was switching between physical lives, I’m sure this is something relatable for a lot of people who switch between careers, hobbies, trying to find who they are and what makes their life meaningful. We all have regrets, things we wished we would have done differently. This book is all about how we deal with them.

The ending particularly resonated with me, not because I had necessarily been through the exact same experiences as Nora, but because I’ve experienced that same metaphorical clicking of a “switch” where suddenly everything that once felt exhausting now feels full of acceptance and gratitude and love. It’s a transformation where your life is the same, but you feel like you’re a different person and you’re seeing it in a different way. And seeing Nora have this same realisation really meant something to me. The solutions we think we need aren’t in our exterior surroundings, but within ourselves.

As I’ve mentioned many times before, I am a huge Matt Haig fan and he inspires me hugely in my own writing. This book honestly blew me away, to the extent that it may even replace my current favourite book The Humans.

Overall, I would describe The Midnight Library as a philosophical dystopian reflection on what it means to truly live. And I think it is full of deeper quotes that would help anyone reflect on their own lives and find their inner meaning.

Check out my other Matt Haig book reviews here:

The Humans / Reasons to Stay Alive / Notes on a Nervous Planet / The Possession of Mr Cave / How to Stop Time / Echo Boy

Have you read The Midnight Library?

Let me know below – I’d love to discuss it!

You can find me on social media here:

Instagram: @mymindspeaksaloud

Twitter: @mindspeaksaloud

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